“Added 9 Years To A Short Sentence”: 50 Lawyers Recall The Stupidest Things Clients Have Done

Not a lawyer, but I was in a courtroom watching injunctions (restraining orders) play out.

One case the woman was there, but the man was in prison so he was calling in. After deciding on an agreement, the guy asked if he could make a statement. At the end of his statement, he said "and tell {the woman} to go f**k herself."

He got an additional 6 months of prison. The guy asked to make another statement after getting a tongue lashing from the judge.

And he did it again - telling her to go f**k herself. And got another 6 months.

Imagine losing a year of your life because you couldn't shut up for 5 minutes.

I had an instructor who was a prosecutor. He called a witness who had seen the whole thing, and had an interest in seeing the defendent punished. Slam dunk case.

She thought she was on TV. She overacted EVERY WORD. Completely embellished the retelling of the events. Didn't lie, but she was the center of her version of events.

He said you could see the faces of the jury members sour minute on minute. He lost the case.

The client called me to the hospital to write his will. (He called me himself – he knew he was terminal, but nobody got anything over on this guy. He was completely cognizant of absolutely everything until the very end).
He left token amounts to the older sons and the bulk of his modest but comfortable estate to the youngest. The youngest son, of course, was positively gleeful to learn he was getting what he thought to be a lot of money, but at the same time was confused as to why Dad would leave things that way since he was actually closer to the older sons. The older sons, who had always been respectful of Dad and responsible, were hurt and confused, especially since they knew how angry their Dad had been at the youngest. They asked what they could do to make the division of things more fair.

I recommended initially that they make a Family Settlement that could be presented to the probate court for approval. Dad's instructions to me and to the cousin he had named administrator were that if any of the older sons challenged his will, paternity tests were to be done on them. He did not believe that any of the sons but the youngest were actually his. I would lay money on the oldest being his just because they looked so much alike. The other three, though? I didn't think they had a prayer. The youngest was not subject to the paternity test.

The whole family was devastated at the paternity test condition. The two sons who owned the garage sat in my conference room and cried. They had no idea. The eldest was angry but didn't hesitate. He knew that whatever his father's suspicions were, he was actually his natural son. The fourth son was rocked. He had a heart attack that night (but survived, fortunately.) The youngest was stunned, too. It never dawned on him that his older brothers might not actually be his brothers.

I was very grateful when they decided to enter into a Family Settlement and divide the estate more equitably.

Not an attorney, worked in a firm. Workers compensation claim, guy falls down at work and claims he injured many different body parts(Shoulder, Knees, Back). We tell him to stay off social media. No problem, he doesnt use social media. At trial, he tells the Judge he used to be a Spin Class Instructor, but since the accident, he cannot teach classes anymore. Welp..turns out, he continued to teach these classes after his injury. This was proved by the HOURS of surveillance the Insurance company did, showing him teaching and vigourously riding in Spin class. How did the Insurance company know he was still an active instructor? The guy posted his Full Teaching Schedule on his FB page. His potentially very lucrative claim, was quickly changed to a fraud claim against him.

Client added 9 years to a short sentence. He got like a year or 2 for being involved in a drag race that the other guy crashed and severely injured someone else. Then towards the end of his short prison term he tried to escape, got 9 more years for prison escape! He became friends with John Lennon's killer in NY prison, which was interesting.

Legal videographer here...

Video taped a deposition for a man claiming work injuries so severe he could not raise his right hand above his shoulder, and his shoulder was in pain whenever he even tried to raise it above the shoulder. Sued his employer claiming it was a work injury. Then came his very first deposition.

Does anybody know the first thing the court reporter asks of the person testifying? The reporter swears them in by saying:

"Would you please raise your right hand and repeat after me..."

Then administers the oath to tell the truth...

Man who claimed not be able to raise his hand above his shoulder... raised his hand way above his shoulder. That hand and arm went up like a rocket. The guy did not even realize what he had done and kept his arm up through the whole oath.

Neither plaintiff or defense counsel caught it. The court reporter and I just looked at each other and let the depo play out. I was hired by defense counsel and showed him the first 20 seconds of the video, and took home a nice bonus because of it.

Case was dropped shortly after that depo.

Friend of mine used to be a latent print analyst. Going to get prints of a suspect arrested for breaking into a home to rob it. While she’s getting the ink and paper set up, suspect shouts, “whaddya need the prints for? She looked right at me when I kicked in the door!”.

NAL - I was a legal clerk for a couple years in college. Still baffles me how this one made it all the way to trial. Lady slipped & fell at a chain restaurant, “hurt” her back irreparably, wanted a huge payout. Said she slipped on butter that was on the floor. On cross exam she was asked what type of butter, answer “the little pats of butter they put out in the buffet.” Defense immediately re-called the store manager…. The store had never used that type of butter. Case ended pretty quickly. Lol.

The worst ones are the ones who think they’re smarter than they are. When it comes time for depositions, broad sweeping statements of how “I would never allow discrimination in my office” and how “I’m 100% sure I never said that” are a great way to destroy your own credibility, set yourself up to get eviscerated by opposing counsel, and ultimately turn a nuisance value b******t case into something worth six figures.    


 Moral of the story: if you’re going to ignore the entire day of deposition prep I did with you just so you can protect your own fragile ego on the record, at least do me the courtesy of telling me to f**k off ahead of time. .

Client charged with DUI. Forced by police to give a urine sample on the side of a very busy interstate highway. Any sympathy the jury may have had for the defendant was lost however, when he fell asleep during the playing of the video of the traffic stop. He had been out all night partying the night before trial. He was found guilty. Then he lied to the judge about what would be in his system during a d**g test and his sentence was doubled.

My mother was in court as a witness, in a case of criminal harassment between two of our neighbours. We basically knew that the case was ridiculous and a sham - the accused neighbour was totally innocent and was being falsely accused by the local trouble makers, who kept on provoking him and who then wanted to be able to sue him for easy money.

Anyway, by pure coincidence, the defendant was secular Jewish, just like my parents. It's literally just a coincidence.

The two trouble maker neighbours, who were also there, were very angry to see my mother in the court. One of them then stood up in the middle of everything and yelled some c**p about how my mother is a Jew and only there because the defendant is a Jew and Jews apparently always stick to help eachother.

The judge immediately ripped him to shreds and threw the case out.

I was working on a $15 million M&A deal and my client called the buyer’s attorney “Barney Fife, country hillbilly.” That attorney was the brother of the CEO of the buyer. They got so pissed they dropped the deal.

Im not a lawyer, this isnt my story. But, the lawyer who handled my business stuff and a legal dispute is a federal judge. Before he became a judge, he was a lawyer for divorces and civil stuff.

A wealthy male client filed for divorce. Theres a prenup. Its pretty iron clad. It discuses the distribution of wealth, the alimony (if any) is laid out at x amount, increasing yearly based on inflation. Theres 1 major “exception” and that is “if you are caught cheating, cheating here is defined by any sexual contact with a person before the divorce is final, you automatically get the worst terms of the prenup.” In the womans case, (if she cheats) she gets zero alimony, and a 1 time payment of 100k. In the mans case, (if he cheats) he loses the main family home, all cars that are not his daily driver, and 1/4 of his business. (A buy out option is available, but doesn’t matter to this story)

Lawyer gets to court and meets with his client in a conference room. And client is beaming. He shakes the lawyers hand. And says “hey! Mike!! I want you to meet jasmine. I met her 2 months ago. Shes amazing. We got engaged over the weekend in france!”

And mike shook her hand and slumped in the chair and said “so, we got a major problem. You are cheating on ur wife with her. And legally, this is discovery im required to hand over to the other side” hes all “how the f**k am i cheating? We’re separated?!?!” Mike is all “cheating is any sexual contact before divorce is final. Its in ur prenup. That you wrote on ur own.”

The guy flipped his s**t. Ended up being so mad, he ditched court. Which gave him a default judgement. Meaning she gets everything she asked for. + because of the cheating + not showing up, the judge ordered that the transfer of money happen with in 30 days. As part of the initial agreement between both parties. Hes not there to contest it. So, blam.

The guy ended up trying to sneak the company to the new woman via a trust. But, its an illegal move. He also tried to hide the money with her by giving her 1.1 million dollars in cash (a bank transfer) but, the judge stopped that once ge found out and required the woman to repay the money since she was given notice also.

He fought for years. And ended up losing money, time, energy, his business, house, 6-7 cars, and his new wife. Now, (cuz i know his daughter from work) hes a retired angry man living in rural new mexico. He cant afford to golf more than once a month. And he posts about how women are scum.

Next morning edit: i certainly didnt expect this to blow up. Ty for the positive dm’s and replies. Ill try to reply if i see any questions in the thread to clarify stuff.

NAL but watched as a girl in her early 20's giggled her way through sentencing on a petty theft charge.

Instead of the same 30-day suspended sentence her remorseful looking co-defendant received, she got 90 days in county jail.

She wasn't giggling after that.

Client accused of punching another man & knocking a tooth out. He said numerous times on the stand that he had arthritis and was not capable of closing his fist to form the punch as described by the victim.

Part way through his cross examination, the magistrate stopped him to state on the record that he had watched my client clench his fist numerous times since he made that statement.

He was found guilty.

Criminal prosecutor here. A patrol officer pulled over a driver for some traffic violation, I think failure to signal. After a heated roadside exchange where the driver initially refused to turn over her license, she ultimately relented and 'thrust the license with undue force' into the officer's outstretched hand. The cop charged her with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer.
When asked to justify his actions, he stated that 'people need to learn to respect the police.' We dismissed the charge, apologized to the defendant, and told the cop to never bring us something like that again. I can't recall if internal affairs was notified.

I work with the police every day, and the majority of them are good people. This guy was a sh*t.

I was called for jury duty and was sitting in the courtroom watching the other potential jurors get questioned by the attorneys, just waiting for my possible turn to be questioned. One of the charges was aggravated assault.

The defense asked one juror (who was a professional videographer) if her career made her more or less likely to put stock in video footage. To me, this was a hint (but not admission) that video footage would be a big part of the case.

Before the juror could even answer, the defendant yelled from his table "I had a mask on! You can't even see my face!"

The entire room went silent for about five seconds before the defense attorney regained his composure and asked the judge to dismiss the jury pool. The judge dismissed us back to the holding room. Five minutes later, one of the clerks of the court came in and told us (even the already selected jurors) that the trial was being rescheduled and we were all dismissed.

I'm pretty sure losing a 5 million dollar defamation case and then immediately then immediately making MORE statements and having it raised to 90 million is pretty far up the list.

Not an attorney, but one client of ours baffles me to this day. He had multiple cases, including aggravated battery and d**g possession, At the insistence of dude’s family, we moved heaven and earth getting him a bond, so that he could get out of jail and live with said family until the case was over. The whole process took weeks.

Less than a day after getting out, he was caught stealing $16 worth of batteries from Target. Bond revoked. To be fair, the line between stupidity and compulsion is blurred with this one.

EDIT: For anyone who’s curious, we immediately ordered a psych eval for him. He was found competent, but it also confirmed what he had mental health issues. The Agg. Batt. charge ended up being dropped, and he took a plea for time served.

Commit robbery in order to hire an expensive attorney with minimal experience in criminal law rather than accept a seasoned public defender.